E-commerce Platforms Comparative Study Based on Alexa1Million Top Sites

Let’s take a look at changes in the e-commerce platforms market structure. We’ll reveal the most recent competitive balance in this sphere and compare it to our previous surveys in order to distinguish trends and market shifts.

Study Description

This study is based on Alexa 1 MillionTop sites examination and provides percentage ratio of sites, which use different e-commerce platforms. The results of this study can’t be interpreted as an overall description of the market or considered apart of this survey.

E-commerce Platforms Comparative Study 2014

Magento takes a leading position among ecommerce platforms and is much ahead its main competitors. Its share is almost about 34%, which is more than one third of the overall quantity of sites using e-commerce platforms. Over the last year it considerably increased its share and despite the leadership still grows faster than the competitors.

Magento CE is traditionally followed by PrestaShop, which takes the second position. The third position is a great surprise, but very pleasant. Magento EE left behind VirtueMart, Zen Cart, osCommerce and took the third place. It’s a great achievement, which has resulted in share growth by 48% in comparison with 2013.

We have several ecommerce platforms, which increased their shares since the last survey:

Magento CE moved from 29% to 33.8% – 4.8% (increased by 16.5% compared to the last survey);

Prestashop moved from 12.3% to 13.4% – 1.1% (increased by 9% compared to the last survey);

Magento EE moved from 5.8% to 8.7% – 2.9% (increased by 48% compared to the last survey);

Shopify moved from 3.7% to 8.3% – 4.6% (increased by 124% compared to the last survey);

Open Cart moved from 3.6% to 4.1% – 0.5% (increased by 13.9% compared to the last survey).

Shopify is an absolute leader in terms of growth. Last year it was out of TOP 5 e-commerce platforms, and now it takes the fourth position. Amid this Magento EE achievement looks a bit modest, but still great. It moved from the sixth to the third place within a year, while Shopify and Magento EE are drastically different in price and potential audience.

Naturally, some platforms have shrunk:

VirtueMart moved from 11.3% to 6.7% – 4.6% (decreased by 41% compared to the last survey);

Zen Сart moved from 7.4% to 4.2%– 3.2% (decreased by 43.2% compared to the last survey);

Volusion moved from 4.6% to 3.9% – 0.7% (decreased by 15.2% compared to the last survey);

osCommerce moved from 6.3% to 3.7% – 2.6% (decreased by 41.3% compared to the last survey).

The second straight year VirtueMart, Zen Cart, and osCommerce are losing their positions, while Volusion’s share is rather stable and is about 4-5% each year.

Google Trends Analysis

Source: http://www.google.com/trends/

Google trends completely confirm our results. Magento search volume is the biggest in April, 2014 and is significantly ahead its main competitors. The sequence of competitors is exactly the same we have in our study, and the recent growth of Shopify on the graph is fully consistent with our findings.

Magento is interesting for users all around the world, the same as Prestashop. Shopify dominates only in Australia and Northern America. VirtueMart is popular in Eastern and Central Europe, while Zen Cart in China, Australia, and Northern America. It seems that Shopify takes its share primarily from Zen Cart, but will affect other competitors in case of further expansion.

Regional Interest. The Largest E-commerce Markets

According to eMarketer, in 2016 China will overtake the U.S. in total spending online, and in 2014 Asia-Pacific region will exceed Norther America. So, let us discover what e-commerce platforms take leadership there. Of course, we cannot consider search volume of terms as the current market situation, but still have a chance to reveal general competitive environment.

China. Source: http://www.google.com/trends/

Magento takes leading positions in China and has almost no competition there. Here it gained a great potential and seems to have excellent perspectives.

India. Source: http://www.google.com/trends/

In India it also is an absolute leader.

United States. Source: http://www.google.com/trends/

However, in the U.S. the situation differs, as Shopify here has almost the same search volume as Magento. But Magento itself does not significantly decrease here, and we may conclude that Shopify is taking from other competitors so far.

Australia. Source: http://www.google.com/trends/

Australia, the same as the U.S., is almost equally interested in Magento and Shopify, and the other competitors can hardly influence this parity.

Brazil. Source: http://www.google.com/trends/

Brazilian users demonstrate decline of their interests in the mentioned above e-commerce platforms. Perhaps it is caused by local economic crisis or they switch to some other substitutes. Anyway the recession is clearly detected, however Magento has a leading position here as well.

Thus, Magento takes leading positions in all five countries and in three of them it is an absolute leader. But it obviously can’t rest on its laurels, as competitors are close enough.

Conclusions

Magento CE has the highest share among ecommerce platforms and continues to grow;

2013 year was apparently very successful for Magento EE;

Over the recent years Shopify grows fast and accelerates its expansion;

During the last years VirtueMart, Zen Cart, and osCommerce lost their leadership and gradually faded away;

Magento search volume is the biggest according to Google Trends;

Shopify search volume almost equals to Magento in the U.S. and Australia.

Please, share your opinion or own researches of e-commerce platforms in the comments below. This will help us build more holistic picture of the subject.

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6 Comments

I'm curious about how this survey is built. Do you guys check the growth of the platforms listed in the previous survey? I'm surprised we always see the same list of platforms and trendy new brands does not appear here yet.
Following the vibe around I would had expected to fin woo commerce, spree and some others in this list.

We use the same set of platforms in order to get comparable data to our previous surveys. But we carefully trace new entrants and next time will change a bit the format of our study and compare not only shares of platforms but absolute changes as well. This will allow us include other noticeable participants into the study.

This is interesting data, I am surprised that Bg Commerce is not on here when both them and shopify have raised a lot of money and have been aggressively trying to go after Magento market share. Any thoughts on why?
The search criteria obviously skews the results to solutions that focus on small retailers. It would also be really interesting to see what commerce systems handle the most order volume by number of transactions or dollar amount. With that type of criteria I'd expect to see some presence of bigger commerce solutions like hybris, ATG, Demandware, IBM and other enterprise grade systems.

Thanks for your case study, but what do you think about Wappalyser results which are quiet differents from yours ? Maybe do you have to compare with Alexia in the next survey ?
https://wappalyzer.com/categories/ecommerce
Have a good day !

We used an up-to-date list of Alexa sites, but a limited list of e-commerce platforms. Check the previous comments. This may cause the difference of results. Next survey we'll include more platforms and, perhaps, our results will be in line with the survey you mentioned.

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